The late summer breeze carried the magic in the air everywhere, and there were no extra clouds in the sky, only the bright moonlight shining on the dark-eroded ground.

The darkness that flowed from the cocoon became a lake, and the cold air seemed to be slightly mixed with the stench of rotten matter, and even the magic of drifting was stained with unsettling colors. The stirring sludge kept lapping against the shore like a tide, and in the darkness only the abnormal sound of water filled the ears.

On the calm pitch-black surface of the lake, several buildings covered with cobweb-like black slime emerge from the water, from which you can access the surface of the lake. The high-rise buildings of the central plaza stand like circular columns in the darkness, and eventually become the lower pillars of the pitch-black cocoon.

Above the high walls that rolled up like a storm, there were many crystalline things, which exuded a strange color like the scales of some kind of creature. A large sphere was suspended in a network between the high-rise buildings, its jet-black flocculent shell glowing like phosphorus fire in all directions.

It was the true core of the Pitch Black Cocoon, and while it was more than a little smaller than the shell that encased the middle of the city, it was still a formidable behemoth to the average human. Around it, a hazy curtain shrouded it, as if a cloud of smoke was erupting from within.

But getting there is no easy task, as both the island-like buildings and the black slime that connects them avoid the right path. Even if you step on the island chain and get to the position where Curt and Lizzie are standing, it is difficult to break through the intricate dark labyrinth.

The two of them were on the path from the outer wall to the inside of the pitch-black cocoon, but there was only a towering cliff in front of them. There used to be a spiraling passage connecting the roof of the building farther away, but it had suddenly collapsed not long ago.

The black area seems to be alive. Every once in a while, unexpected changes occur, and the adjacent passages become a dead end surrounded by darkness in the blink of an eye. A carpenter who can change can't find the exact pathway. Recklessly stepping into it will only repeat the mistakes of the past.

The most convenient way to do this is probably to fly directly over the labyrinth, which would have been a matter of course for spirits - but to no avail here. The body feels strangely heavy. It's like a long journey just now, and in this darkness, even the magic in the body has become silent.

It was now eleven o'clock in the evening, and the sorcerers who had been greedy for their work had finally chosen to retreat after suffering and stopped their advance on the shore of the black lake. It could barely absorb the magic of the moonlight, and it also provided a chance for the mages who broke through the darkness to recover their bodies.

The so-called eating a trench and growing a wisdom, and reckless actions to put oneself in danger are definitely not bravery, but unplanned. Although some of the Apostles who had been constructed with magic were consumed by the darkness, the mages were fortunate to have only lost some of their bodies. And none of them were attacked.

The man I had seen before crouched on a rock by the lake, looking down at the mud that had accumulated beneath him. His unrefined clothes had somehow become tattered, and the expression on his face was sad, and it was obvious that what appeared in front of him made him think.

Beside him sat a stocky woman, absorbing the magic of the moonlight while spreading out a row of connected rectangular Rubik's Cubes in front of her. She tapped the ancient words in the rectangular box, and from time to time she turned her head to look to the other side, anxiously waiting for something.

It was a Rubik's cube used for communication, and the caster's magic would shake the air. And the encrypted message is conveyed to the destination. Soon, she said a few words loudly to her colleagues around her with a happy face, and then lifted the Rubik's Cube in her hand and walked along the high cliff by the lake to the direction where she came.

"Someone is coming, it looks like reinforcements. ”

Lizzie turned her head to look in the direction the wizards had come. She could feel more spirits coming: "It's a little slower than I expected, but it's a lot. It seems that the person in charge of liaison has truthfully reported the danger to the organization. ”

Several streamers of spirit light were approaching, and they slashed across the ground. A few vivid colors were left in the phantom of Catrice City. They should be more capable than the first explorers, and Curt could feel that someone's magic had pierced into the darkness like a probe.

Suddenly, there were more points of light like fireflies in the sludge-covered space. They flutter in the air irregularly, spreading their dim glow everywhere. This is obviously the effect of some kind of spell. Seeing that Lizzie waved her finger slightly, they actively avoided the place where the two of them were.

On the other hand, the pudgy woman who was walking along the lakeside road had already seen her companion coming, and there was a rare smile on her chubby face. Just as she was about to open her mouth to greet them, the black water behind her suddenly shook.

Puff -

Darkness shot out like a spear, piercing her chest in the blink of an eye, tearing a plate-sized hole in her pearly white spirit. Suddenly, the torn magic turned into flickering gas, and the short and fat spirit that was still full of brilliance suddenly became much darker.

Out of the depths of darkness crawled an alien monster, its wildly growing hands, feet, and limbs intertwined like snakes. Like a sludge-forcible sang, the monster's body is covered in boiling darkness, and only the head barely has the shape of a human in its distorted appearance, but if one looks closely, its face bears a slight resemblance to the woman who was attacked.

If it were a human, such a badly wounded person would have died on the spot - but spirits were not so easily destroyed. The woman gritted her teeth fiercely, and a translucent glittering sphere suddenly unfolded around her in a spiral, like a storm, crushing the alien that pierced and attacked her.

She was not the only one who was targeted, and just when the reinforcements arrived, the darkness that had been calm suddenly exploded, and countless aliens crawled out of the boiling darkness. Such monsters are only seen in nightmares, and each individual is filled with a sense of mad distortion.

Whether it's elemental or pure magic, the sorcerers unleash something that can damage their enemies, literally blasting them to smithereens. Scattered sludge seeped into the ground between the glow of the spell burst and the gale, gathering together and slowly flowing back to the surface of the lake where it appeared.

Lizzie's brow furrowed slightly, and she suddenly remembered the strange spirit she had seen in the academy, and their entangled appearance had something in common with this alien. Although they are extremely ugly, they are fragile and have only one way to retreat under the skills of the mage.

"It's really strange why did you choose this time to attack?" Curt looked suspiciously at the lakeside where the battle suddenly broke out, the timing of the dark attack made him feel that something was wrong, "If you want to attack them unprepared, wouldn't it be better to take advantage of the fact that they have retreated there and have not yet recovered their strength?" Now that the reinforcements have arrived, even if someone will let their guard down, those mages who have rushed to the rescue are not easy to deal with. ”

On a long chain of narrow islands made up of the ruins of buildings, a group of slimy, grotesque objects wriggled. It was a monstrous group of black mud that looked like the limb parts of various creatures had been forcibly put together, circling around the web-like darkness.

Of course, he also knew that it was wishful thinking to expect these self-defense functions to be capable of thinking, especially when they had a numerical advantage. The knocked down sludge crumbled into pieces of wreckage, turned into sticky juice and seeped into the ground - and then quickly returned from the depths of darkness. The magicians repelled the sludge monsters again and again, but they couldn't stop them from attacking from the lake again.

Among the battle, there was a young sorcerer who stood out, his body shimmering with a golden red light, like a human form formed by a condensed flame. That man must be the elite of the elite, comparable to the "Eyes of Knowledge" who served under Dean Chris François.

It was then that Curt suddenly remembered that the powerful mage known as the "Wind of the Twelve" should have noticed the anomaly that was happening in the city, but he didn't seem to take action. If you look closely, none of the people who have come to investigate the anomaly are any of his direct subordinates, and even the sorcerers from the talent dispatch agencies are only "talents" from the Academy, not the cronies of Dean François.

Although Curt was reluctant to think from this perspective, he still felt that Dean François was deliberately avoiding having a relationship with this "dark cocoon". Not only that, but he also concealed this information from the town hall and prevented the mages of other forces from investigating.

Didn't François know anything about this? Curt remembered the previous meeting, when he seemed to have fallen victim to Sein Democra's plot and was being poisoned. He claims to have a solution, but it will affect his actions in the end. If there were any renegades among his men at this time, his decision would undoubtedly be affected - and at worst, he would have been accused by Sain Democra.

"I think François may have noticed the existence of this thing, but he probably had other plans, so he didn't make a move. Lizzie saw through Curt's thoughts, hesitated for a moment, and then said, "After all, we don't know many wizards who belong to the purpose of Wisdom, and even if there are members of these people, it is not surprising that they have a plan in place. ”

As she said, after repelling the dark monsters that had once again lunged at the team, the young mage at the head suddenly threw a block with a strange sheen into the darkness. From the direction of the two of them, it looked like a crystal cut from ice cubes that wouldn't melt.

In an instant, the crystal emitted a blazing blue glow, so dazzling that it almost stabbed the eyes of those who gazed at it with a burning light. (To be continued......)